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Aotearoa: The Land of the Long White Cloud

Aotearoa (Maori for New Zealand) is home to some of the most pristine scenes of nature. I highly recommend putting it on your list of travel destinations and giving yourself lots of time to explore!

I have never seen such expansive fields of wild lavender…

…mysterious snow-capped mountains in summer…

…and so many sheep! I reckon it’s true that there are more sheep than people on South Island.

If there’s one thing other than the beautiful landscape that sticks in my mind, it would have to be the possums; the dead ones, to be exact. The pour souls are even referred to as ‘New Zealand’s little speed bumps’. We saw a dead possum nearly every other kilometer! And the ironic thing is although they’re considered pests (pronounced peests), possum fur is extremely expensive, even more so than lambswool.

Road kill jokes aside, although we only had eight short days to take in all of South Island, we were able to get a good survey of the land and loved it so much we plan on making a return visit soon. And the next time we’ll definitely plan for more than eight days and hope to also explore the North!